My
mum and dad still refer to me to this day is a bit of a pain in the backside
and probably from head how many parents have we got in here give me a quick
wave are loads of you OK what I was a hyperactive child I drove my parents up
the wall with my endless amounts of energy I wouldn't sleep I needed constant
attention and no matter what my parents seemed to do I wouldn't rest a few of
you not doing sorry about that my parents had no idea what to do with me so
they took me to the family doctor to see if there's anything that he could do
now I'm not sure what available labels there were back then but the family
doctor labeled me as a problem child and he said to my mum daddy he can't cope
with me I can always take him off you and sedate him and that he
proceeded to share with him some other drug related interventions that they
might want to consider and for whatever reason my mum and dad bulked at this
they decided that they would find another way.
So
they gave me away to other people to look after mum and dad's friends and
family but that didn't work because everyone got very busy and they were left
my mom and dad were left with their problem child at the end of their tether
you know there's a picture of my mum and dad on their wedding day they look
young healthy vital and there's a picture of the three of us less than two
years later and they look at how they've aged 25 years so my parents decided to
fight fire with fire and they decided to attempt to tire me out and that's
where my life of activity started way.

Before
I can even remember I was swimming from day dot. I went to mother and baby
gymnastics before I was 1 year old that turned into tumble tots and I was
taking part in any physical activity that was going and every sport that I was
able to do at the age that I was at and magical things started to happen I
became easier to manage and I'm glad my parents went down the physical activity
route because my dreams of going to the Olympic Games started when I was six
years old I watched the Olympic Games on the TV in nineteen eighty-four and I
told my dad then that I wanted to go to the Olympic Games I used to get the
Guinness Book of World Records at Christmas and I would write down in my best
handwriting my time next to the world-record holder to see how many minutes I
needed to take off and I'm glad my parents went down this route because when I
was 9 or just before I was 9 I started diving and that was one of the many
sports that I tried but actually within a short space of time it was clear to
me the diving was the sport for me ultimately I followed my limpid Reims in the
sport diving competing at 3 Olympic Games and even winning an Olympic medal in
2004 and none of that would have been possible if my mum and dad hasn't chosen
physical movement as my medicine.so it's widely known the negative effects of
inactivity on someone's physical health and the associated risk of disease but
what's really concerning me is the link between inactivity and someone's mental
health.

This
is a huge issue today you know in a recent index of over 300 diseases mental
health problems were the largest cause of the overall disease burden worldwide
here in the UK 2016 official survey showed that nearly 20 percent of those 16
and over are suffering with symptoms of either depression and/or anxiety and
there's a huge percentage of the population who don't necessarily have a
diagnosable mental health problem but who are suffering with their mental
health it seems that stress and overwhelm are so commonplace in today's society
and although stress in itself is not a mental health issue it's often the
starting point for many. Could you imagine what our world would be like if we
had very few mental health issues what would it be like if we could drastically
reduce the number of people who are suffering well I believe we can I think
there's something that we can do even more of and is simple I'd like to argue
that we spend too much time stuck in our heads and not enough time in our
bodies thinking isn't necessarily the solution to our problems.

Thinking
is often the cause especially when we get stuck in a pattern of over thinking
over thinking leads to psychological stress and according to the World Health
Organization stress is a global health epidemic so what can we do we can move
more we can physically move because you know physically moving changes
absolutely everything and when I say everything I mean our experience of the
world and what else is there fascinating things happen biochemically in the
brain.
When
we move the first thing that happens when we begin to move physically the human
nervous system recognizes this as a moment of stress and in order is it thinks
you're about to fight or flee from an enemy and in order to protect you your
brain releases a chemical a protein called brain-derived neurotrop factor fancy
name BDNF . For short BDNF prepares the brain protects the brain and it also
plays a key role in creating new neurons specifically in the hippocampus area of
the brain alongside this another chemical is release one that you may be more
familiar with endorphins .Endorphins are often attributed to the high that we
feel after moving physically but their role is to dumb down any disk but that
we might encounter from fighting or fleeing from that enemy so essentially it's
the chemical mix of BDNF and endorphin which explain why things are often
clearer and we feel more at ease after moving physically but how does this show
up in the real world ? How do we experience this well moving?

Physically
in the short term immediately changes our state .It boosts our mood and it
releases the buildup of stress in our human nervous system and over the
long-term consistent physical movement changes the structure of our brain it boosts
self-esteem and decreases the biological reaction to psychological stress.Psychological
stress is clearly the enemy to our mental health and its physical movement that
is our best weapon to respond this isn't new Cicero.who was around over 2,000
years ago arguably one of Rome's greatest orators said this it is exercise
alone that supports the spirits and keeps the mind in vigor and he was right
and it seems more applicable now than ever there's a whole body of research
showing that movement is an effective. Intervention on more serious mental
health issues in 2013.

There
was a study into depression that showed that meditative movement in this case
it was yoga chi gong and tai chi were effective in reducing symptoms of
depression in all participants in that particular study a few years later a
separate study showed that regular yoga practice as an intervention and it must
be regular was effective in reducing the symptoms severity of post-traumatic
stress disorder PTSD even in some cases so much so that PTSD diagnosis was no
longer valid a different type of movement intervention was used to combat
anxiety disorders. It was shown that aerobic exercise actually was a fantastic
intervention into those who suffering those with anxiety when they
experienced a physiological change that they are fearful of .For example an
increased heart rate when it's through aerobic exercise it helped make the
fight flight response. Their stress system less reactive and therefore building
resilience and a tolerance to such symptoms resulting in infrequent less
frequent less intense anxiety episodes and finally Fritz and O'Connor .

In
2016 showed that 20 minute bouts of medium intensity exercise successfully
reduced symptoms of those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD
and that's certainly reflective of our movement was used as an intervention
when I was younger so what would happen if we reclaimed our mental health by
moving more well there's two actions that you can all take the first one is when
you find yourself in a context where you're stressed.

Whatever
that is maybe you're hunched over the laptop maybe it's a completely different
context when you're stressed you're poisoning your body there's chemical
changes taking place cortisol is
going through the roof Adrenaline's going through the roof and if you don't
change that then you're poisoning your body the thing that you do is get up and
go for a walk if that is available to you if you're physically not capable of
that even just changing your posture and the rhythm of your breath is enough to
change the chemicals in the brain and move
you from stress more towards wellness the most important thing here is we
disrupt this constant pattern we disrupt the buildup of stress and do this
as often as you can and the second long-term solution is a challenge.
I
challenge you to find your movement your physical movements poor activity
doesn't matter what it is but there's
something very important at play here and I learnt this the hard way so clearly
diving was my movement and you'd think that someone like me who's to train for
seven hours a day six days a week would be one of the most mentally well people
around because of all of that movement.

But that wasn't the
case in my experience the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000 ended up fourth and I
knew that he couldn't get any closer to my dreams that next year things started
to go south. I had a reconstructive shoulder surgery on my right shoulder at
seven months of painstaking rehabilitation then I made it back to fitness only
to have to go under the knife once again for a second shoulder reconstruction
on this same shoulder and then I fell into a ditch for the next eight months
life wasn't fair I fell into a depression. I was training and training
obsessing on all of the detail doing exactly what I needed to do and I was
stuck because something was missing. I hit rock bottom I'm stood on a pool side
away from the crowds with tears rolling down my face my shoulders are hunched
and I've given up because I've tried everything and he's often the way there's
a point where it turns around and it was my mentor that came up to me at that
time and he gently put his hand on my shoulder and he asked me a question. He
said remind me why you do this sport because I could enjoy it. I said well what
I only seen you smile for the past eight months and that was it the reason I
chose the sport in the first place over all of the sports. I went into when I
was young because I enjoyed it and because of the stress and the pressure that
I put myself in. I was stuck in that negative spiral I made one change when I
went back to training the very next day I put a smile on my face and it was
like that it was a forced smile to start with but that negative spiral very
quickly started to go the other way.
I
found the joy in the movement once every single training session every single
dive every single weight I lift it. I find that didn't make it easy but I found
their joy in it and that negative spy went the other way and I was back on
track after my Olympic dreams.
So
my challenge to you this is an exercise for exercise saying this isn't forcing
yourself to go to the gym this isn't movement for movement say this is find
your movement the movement that fills you with joy so we challenge you to be
creative walk run swim dive play tennis kick a football even head off
to one of those early-morning sober raves that's the thing you should try them
whatever you need to do but the magic ingredient here is enjoyment so what
would happen if we moved more on and what
is possible for movement as an intervention well number of years ago I was
asked to work with a young man as an executive coach I was to be his performance
coach and on paper things were looking amazing because he was a high flyer
accelerating through a massive organization here in London.

He
was already almost at the top of the very tree but in reality things were very
different when I sat down with him. I discovered the things were very dark.He
was suffering with bipolar disorder. He was under the care of a psychiatrist
and over the past five or six years the symptom severity of his bipolar
disorder had slowly been increasing and therefore the
medication he was on subsequently was being upped and upped and he found
himself to a point where it was tearing him. His young family apart and he were
right on the edge. We made one intervention I asked him what do you love to do
movement wise he was he did tell me story how he still loved to run. When he
was younger so he built a series of behaviors and habits around running he
started to go running frequently before long in a number of weeks he'd already
joined a local running club and this journey went on in six months down the
line. He ran in his local half marathon with his wife his children extended
friends and family cheering him on the most momentous day and over that period
the symptom severity of his bipolar disorder had been reduced so much that he
was taken off pretty much all of his medication.
The
side effects that were plaguing him had faded away and from a mental health
point of view he was in the best place he'd been for over a decade because running
was his movement so there's a beautiful quote that I'm going to leave you with
from Thomas Jefferson who said this exercise and application produce
order to our affairs health of body cheerfulness of mind and those make us
precious to our friends. So in this world of stress overwhelm and overthinking
we need to get out of our heads and back into our bodies. We need to physically
move more because if we don't the children of this world will continue to model
our behaviors of stress and inactivity and this mental health unwellness will
continue to rise. So here today let's start a movement for movement I challenge
you to reclaim your mental
health by finding your movement the movement that fills you with joy and do it
as often as you can.
thank
you